Further addressing demand for over-the-top (OTT) video quality, content delivery network (CDN) services provider Akamai has announced the opening of its Broadcast Operations Control Center (BOCC). Located at the company’s Cambridge, Mass., headquarters, the facility is designed to help ensure the reliability of OTT services through a combination of highly trained technical staff and a host of monitoring, analytics, reporting, quality and availability measurement tools.

The BOCC is staffed 24×7 by a team of specialized broadcast issue resolution experts possessing hybrid skills across media and networking to address the unique needs of Akamai OTT customers. The team, which typically averages 12 at any given time but can grow to more than 50 during major events, operates in overlapping shifts to ensure seamless transitions while monitoring every aspect of customer media performance.

BOCC experts would demonstrate a holistic view of customer workflows via a suite of dedicated tools built upon Akamai’s Media Analytics. Live streaming telemetry and beaconing from encoder to end user provide real-time visibility into the health of customer video streams and network conditions, complemented with instant alerts, “powerful” troubleshooting and rapid issue mitigation.

Though workflows can vary, Akamai collaborates with customers to establish optimal encoder profiles and player configurations designed to best address their requirements while supporting multiple adaptive streaming formats.

Global Network

The BOCC was designed and is managed by Akamai Director of Media Operations Matt Azzarto, a veteran broadcast systems engineer tasked with bringing together best practices from online video streaming, network operations and television broadcasting into a central hub to monitor and support business-critical OTT video services.

“With the new BOCC, Akamai is helping to address consumer quality-of-experience expectations for OTT by raising our customer service, support and component-level access into the CDN,” said Matt Azzarto. “We’re replacing help tickets and hold time with real-time communication and deep, proactive monitoring designed to alert customers to potential issues before they actually arise.”

The BOCC is complemented by Akamai‘s Network Operations Command Centers (NOCC) and Security Operations Centers (SOC), which together would provide expansive breadth of insight into global network conditions and potentially threatening traffic activity.

Akamai is demonstrating a model BOCC along with its live and on-demand OTT workflows, from acquisition to playback, during the 2016 NAB Show at Booth SL3325, April 18th – 21st in Las Vegas.

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